What have you done to your car today?

Managed to clip a fallen tree branch after the wind last night.

Lovely scratch down the whole side, most the whiting effect will polish off but i can feel it with my nail :mad:
 
Special delivery from China today!

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Howard said:
Looks like that's a nice fit!

No climate control tho? I thought all VRS' had it :(
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Yeah seems so far so good - more responsive than I thought it would be. Just trying to iron out an issue of being unable to download apps and will be able to use it as intended :)

No climate no, didnt become standard until the facelift on the VRS. As I mentioned when I got it, it's a low spec car, but it's so good mechanically that it was worth tolerating. Climate was one thing I was torn about as it cant be retrofitted, but I really only prefer it for the aesthetic reasons (the dash looks nicer). This is quasi climate, as the temperature at the vents is regulated - just the speed and direction are manual. I'm not missing it from a functionality perspective :)
 
I did a load of work on my cheapy (£430) 318is over the weekend.

Cleaned/Waxed
Cleaned wheels with "Dragon Breath! (awesome stuff!)
Hoover and de-odourised interior
Wet-Vac interior and seats
Fit Z3 rear view mirror
Cleaned the dash/doorcards
Fitted new badges
Replaced driver's side rear light cluster due to the inside being rusted to hell and half the bulbs not working.

Removed the viscous fan unit and removed metallic strip to force the fan to work all the time (it was getting a bit hot in traffic and needed the heating on to bring it back into line!) It seemed the fan was never locking on and could be stopped by squishing the shroud. When I removed the strip, and let it get to temp, I could no longer stop the fan by squishing the shroud. If I end up keeping it for long, or the noise annoys me, I will replace the unit, but should be good for now :)

Still, here is how it looks now :)

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Gave it it's first MOT since January 2014. Only failed on a lighting issue which I knew about, and a steering rack gaiter. I assumed the awful French/Italian roads would have done a lot more damage but I've clearly been lucky.
 
It doesn't have an 'auto' setting for the fan speed or direction though, so it's a pretty lame implementation of climate control :p
 
Indeed! However, unless the system has some capacity to monitor and adjust the interior temperature then the degrees Celsius number on the heat / cool dial is meaningless.
 
As I said, it does adjust the temperature from the vents to match the heat setting. So on a cold morning you'll get warm air when it's set to 20, when it's been sat in the sun it'll be cold air.

It's not climate control (although I believe it was called "Climatronic" on the Mk4 Golf, Skoda just call it Manual AC!) but it's fine for me. I often find with climate I end up setting stuff manually anyway
 
Climatronic has always been VW's name for their fully-automatic digital climate control AFAIK.

Each to their own of course, but digital CC is the best thing since sliced bread and one of very few features that I would absolutely categorically never ever own a car without. (unless it was an MX5 or something).
 
Howard said:
Climatronic has always been VW's name for their fully-automatic digital climate control AFAIK.

Each to their own of course, but digital CC is the best thing since sliced bread and one of very few features that I would absolutely categorically never ever own a car without. (unless it was an MX5 or something).
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I'm sure I've seen the same dials as mine in a Mk5 Golf with "climatronic" printed underneath.....Might have been "climatic"..

Anyhoo, I thought the same as I've had digital climate for so long. It's something I spent more time than I care to admit pouring over in my head. It was the one bit of spec that I thought was really important and couldn't be retrofitted. In the end the car was so good mechanically, the odds of finding one as good with the options was slim, especially at that budget. Bearing in mind I paid £3500 for it, there's one being advertised on Briskoda at the moment which has digital climate and armrest (which mine will also have by the weekend) with more mileage and probably not as good mechanically for £4650. I figured I'd learn to live with it, and I've not actually missed it one bit (yet)
 
[TW]Fox;28127993 said:
Only if you either don't understand how it works or the car has a poor system.

Last time I touched the digital controls for my climate was the day I collected the car.
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Why is every post in response to me a snarky remark about lack of understanding things :confused:

I completely understand how climate works and I've had various cars with systems of different qualities. But like everything in life, and something you never quite seem to fathom, is that everyone has different tastes.

No, I don't turn it down to 17 to encourage it to cool down faster on a hot day, I know that's not how it works. But I personally prefer to have different temperatures at different times of day/year etc. On a cold morning, I want to be in a warm car so I'll turn it up to 22-23. After a day of being stuck in a stuffy office on a sweltering summers day I actually want to be in a nice cool environment, so might turn it down to 19. Sometimes I'll want to direct air at my feet if I've got cold feet etc etc etc. If you're happy leaving it at one temperature then that's fine, but I prefer not to. For this reason, I don't really miss having digital climate. You probably would and thats fine too.
 
Sometimes I'm hot, sometimes I'm cold. Why would I want the temperature of the car to be the same for when I'm in T-shirt and shorts to when I'm in thick jeans and a coat? Physics dear boy...
 
[TW]Fox;28128019 said:
3500 quid for a Mk2 seems like an excellent buy.
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Indeed, I'm quite pleased with it. It was cheap because it was a private sale and the guy had a genuine reason for needing to sell it fairly prompt - I was fortunate to catch the advert quickly.

The equipment level is low, the prefacelift VRS was pretty lacking, so it has manual AC, basic trip computer, no armrest etc. The option it does have over standard, which is expensive to retrofit is the Bi-Xenon headlamps. So that affected it's value too somewhat.

There were also a few bits of paintwork which I've had done, I had guessed about £500 but it only cost me £220 so I've had the wheels refurbed too so it stands me less then £4k with the bodywork sorted out.

The guy has spend literally thousands making it perfect. One wishbone bush had failed, so all the wishbone bushes, top mounts, ARBs and bushes, trackrod ends etc etc were replaced. An advisory on an MOT for a misting shock absorber and it got new Bilstein shocks on all 4 corners. For 3 years it's had oil changes every 6k miles, things which arent service items like decoking the inlet and the fuel cam have been done. Various common issues like the PCV and diverter valve have been replaced etc etc.

I have receipts adding up to more than I paid for the car in the last 6 months, all in the pursuit of making it perfect. The guy was so enthusiastic about the car and seemed genuinely sad to see it go - he had to get a car less than 5 years old for work, he wanted to keep this as his "fun" car but the wife wouldnt let him...So that's what made it worth living without climate!
 
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Muffin` said:
Sometimes I'm hot, sometimes I'm cold. Why would I want the temperature of the car to be the same for when I'm in T-shirt and shorts to when I'm in thick jeans and a coat? Physics dear boy...
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I keep mine set to 20c all year round. In the winter it keeps the cabin warm and in the summer it keeps me nice and cool. It may be the same temperature but at the opposite ends of the weather spectrum it's quite different, relatively speaking.



Iain I think you got a very good deal for your car - it seems like the previous owner has been rather fastidious and this would definitely help offset the sometimes-questionable reliability reports of the VRS
 
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